Indiana landfills now generating electricity from methane

October 21, 2008

LOGANSPORT, Ind. (AP) — Two northern Indiana landfills equipped with machinery that turns methane gas into energy are now generating enough power to light about 5,100 homes. The Oakridge Landfill in Logansport and Liberty Landfill in Buffalo are Waste Management Inc.'s newest Indiana power generating sites to harness the gas produced by decomposing garbage.

Waste Management, the nation's largest garbage hauler, has installed methane-to-electricity systems at 16 of its Indiana landfills and hundreds more nationwide to turn the gas into power.

"We're not just doing it here, we're doing it everywhere it makes sense," Terry Beasy, the district manager for both the Oakridge and Liberty facilities, told the Pharos-Tribune.

The methane is collected through networks of wells dug into the mounds of decomposing trash. It's then pressurized and fed into a generator that burns it to produce electricity.

Together, the Logansport and Liberty landfills now generate enough electricity to power about 5,100 homes. That power is collected by Wabash Valley Power and distributed to homes throughout its system.

Beasy said that the 3.1-megawatt Oakridge plant generates the same amount of electricity each year as 50,000 barrels of oil. Since going online, he said the site has produced 131 million kilowatts of electricity Â? or the equivalent of 267,917 barrels of oil.

He said the Oakridge facility about 40 miles northeast of Lafayette uses four generator engines that churn out 3,100 kilowatts of electricity per hour.

Dick Hettinger, executive director of the Cass County Solid Waste District, called Oakridge's generating facility "a very important project for the community," and added that it is one of the little known facts about Waste Management.

"They're taking something that's totally wasted and converting it into something that can be used to power homes. That's the big thing right there," Hettinger said.

The gas-to-energy process used by Waste Management is among the methods recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency under its Landfill Methane Outreach Program. That voluntary program aims to reduce methane released into the atmosphere by landfills, which account for 23 percent of total methane production, according to the EPA.

The power conversion process begins with the gas collection and control system, a process required by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to reduce the odor and increase air quality.

Although methane collection is mandated, the method of controlling or using landfill gas thereafter is not regulated. Many landfills, especially smaller facilities, simply burn off the collected gas instead of converting it to electricity.